JoãovsJohnWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“João” and “John” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#41,851
“João” frequency rank
#1,203
“John” frequency rank
43054
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature João John
Definition Prénom masculin portugais. Nom de famille.

Letter map: João vs John

Shared letters muted; letters that set João and John apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
João
4 ch
John

Spelling & dictionary notes on João vs John

João and John are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43054, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

João is recorded at frequency rank #41,851, classified as aname, pronounced \ʒo.ɑ̃\. John is at rank #1,203, tagged as aname.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 43054, this pair ranks #220,966 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of João vs John

Shared letters: jo. Private to "João": ã. Private to "John": hn.

"João" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "John" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Johnjhon · jjohn · johhn · johnn · jonh · ojhn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "João" for "John" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "João" vs "John" - which ranks higher?
"John" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,203 in our French list, against #41,851 for "João". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "João" vs "John" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "João" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "John" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #220,966 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "João" and "John" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "João vs jor". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #220,966 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list